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A small, high-tech company based in St. Louis recently smashed the sound barrier without leaving the ground. Like stairs or revolving doors, sound can become a barrier for some people with disabilities. Employers routinely remove obstacles that prevent their employees from performing in the workplace. So what can be done for those who have trouble speaking or whose voice can't be heard in noisy workplaces?
Though the causes are many, the results are the same: A voice that's unclear, too soft, or too strained by the effort of speaking can't break through the sound barrier. And if a person can't communicate effectively, he or she can't compete for business or for promotions.
For years, the only help available to a speech-challenged person has been a voice amplifier -- a technology largely unchanged over the past 40 years. Trouble is, if your speech is unclear, an amplifier can't make it clearer, only louder. That's little help for people whose speech is difficult to understand. And for those with a whisper or inaudible voice, amplifiers help only in a relatively noise-free area. Sometimes, the workplace can be a noisy place indeed.
The Spectrum VP is as different from a voice amplifier as the Internet is from the old corner newsstand
Now comes Electronic Speech Enhancement Inc., which has developed a technology to make speech louder and clearer. The eight-ounce Spectrum VP (voice processor) is a little larger than a Walkman and is worn on the belt. The user speaks into a miniature microphone, and voila: the VP makes a weak or muffled voice clear and concise, rejects any background noise, and greatly reduces the strain that many speech-challenged people face. The VP works especially well with computer voice-recognition systems, which can decipher spoken language quite easily.
The Spectrum VP is as different from a voice amplifier as the Internet is from the old corner newsstand. It's a sophisticated microelectronics device that actually rebuilds the sound waves of speech. It can analyze and reconstruct speech, using not only audible sounds but also inaudible elements of the voice that are too subtle for the human ear to decipher.
HE'S NOT DRUNK.
This process happens in the blink of an eye -- or, more accurately, faster than the ear can hear. It's fully automatic and never needs tuning, programming, or adjusting. And it adapts to both long- and short-term speech variations. Let's look at two users.
Richard Hosty was born with cerebral palsy. He uses a wheelchair, and he describes growing up in a family with eight brothers and sisters as a lot like the movie My Left Foot. Today at 39, he's on the road 50% of the time as a disability programs regional coordinator for the State of Missouri, teaching, lecturing, training, and raising awareness of disabilities.
For him, noisy airports, hotels, restaurants, and taxi-cab rides pose severe communications barriers. Hosty's speech is loud enough, just unclear. That's where the VP comes in. "I don't know why people assume you are either drunk or stupid if your speech is not clear," he laments. "All I know is that they can understand me when I talk through the speech enhancer. Now they listen to me."
"If students fall asleep during my lectures now, it's not my voice, but the content"
Dr. George Miles has the opposite problem. His speech is clear but barely audible. He's an instructor in political science at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. Six years ago during surgery for cancer, his vagus nerve was cut, leaving his voice no more than a breathy whisper. Having tried ordinary voice amplifiers to no avail, Miles kept searching. His sleuthing paid off when he discovered ESE's Web site and found the Spectrum VP. Now he lectures using his enhancer, and he quips, "If students fall asleep during my lectures now, it is not my voice, but the content."
For Miles, speaking was an exhausting exercise before he found the VP. He was "shouting all day long and still not being heard." Says Miles: "The fatigue reduction is important to me."
SPECIAL FUNDING.
As America's labor force ages, speech-related disorders are expected to increase. The Federal Communications Commission already mandates equal-access telephone accommodation for people who can't hear or speak, and the Spectrum VP can be an effective telephone aid. A person whose speech is too soft or unclear for reliable telephone access may qualify for special funding for the device.
Insurance companies will pay for speech enhancement as a medical necessity and, in some cases, to help their clients maintain employment and avoid placing them on total disability. The product is also eligible for reimbursement by Medicaid programs, vocational rehabilitation, Champus, school systems, the Veterans Administration, and under Canada's socialized medicine program.
Good thing, too. Because the VP system costs $5,800. Contact ESE for more information at 314 298-8908.
Williams writes a weekly column for Business Week Online on assistive technology. For information on assistive technology, write to him at JMMAW@aol.com. You can also discuss these issues on BW Online EDITED BY DOUGLAS HARBRECHT
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